Echoes (I) Caught Red-Handed
by Soo W
Summary: The newly-made Angelus is haunted with erotic memories of a past love. Sequel to Pen Pictures.
1. Chapter 1

Echoes (I) Caught Red-Handed 1/3

Author's Name: Soo W 

Disclaimer: These characters belong to WB/Joss/Fox etc etc, but certainly not to me. I'm only writing this for fun and therapy. And because there are NEVER, ever, enough flashbacks.

Pairing: Liam/Anna

Spoilers: Based loosely on events in Becoming and The Prodigal

Short Summary: The newly risen Angel and Darla have run amok in Liam's village. As they try to hide the evidence, Angel is obsessed by memories of a recent event in his human life. 

Rating: [R]

Comments: This is a follow-up to Pen Pictures, but I don't think you need to have read that to read this, so don't worry. It's based on the premise that Liam was having an affair with Anna, the servant who appears in flashbacks in AtS, before he was turned. 

Echoes (I) Caught Red-Handed 1/3

"A penny for those thoughts."

I gawk at the sight of the child in Darla's grip. He's already been bitten, and as he wriggles piteously she holds on tighter so he won't escape. She gives me a sickly-sweet smile.

"Tell me! I want to know. You looked... quite lost for a moment."

I relax back against the tombstone and recall the details. It was one time when she didn't keep our appointment, so I came into the kitchen looking for her. Some kind of jam or jelly was in the making: a row of scrupulously clean jars stood at the ready. A large pot of sticky concoction was already boiling away, and our large kitchen table was half covered in bunches of red-currants.

Anna sat at the far side of the room in one of the wooden kitchen chairs. Her hands hovered above a large white bowl, and she was quickly and expertly stripping the tiny carmine berries from the sprigs. The currants were ripe to the point of bursting, but they fell from her fingers and bounced off the white glaze, whole and unharmed. 

The object of the work didn't interest me, but the worker held my attention, and as a way into a conversation I reached for a handful of the fruit. She studiously ignored me. I skirted the room, until I stood directly to her left, and then came over to the bowl, and watched her technique for a moment. She picked up a sprig by the central twig without touching the currants, threaded her fingers through its tiny, hair-like branches and, with a quick, downwards pull, detached the fruit from the remains of the plant. They dropped into the bowl, rolling down the sides of a small mountain of their kind, and settling for a brief moment, before being knocked further from the apex by another handful of berries. She then discarded the empty twig and picked up another. The entire process took but a second or two.

I twirled the bunch of red-currants in my hand, and leaned against the table a few inches away from the point where her browned forearm touched the wood. Still, she would not look at me, but I studied her. A white handkerchief adorned her hair, pulling it back from her face and keeping it away from her work. She had attempted to roll the bulk of it away neatly, but at some time the knot had come loose and it now lay down her back in a half unravelled twist. A single lock escaped the tyranny imposed on the rest, and lay forward, following the line of her neck and curling in the hollow of her throat. I reached across into her line of vision and she started slightly, then went back to being an automaton as my finger glided down her soft skin and under the wisp of hair. I lifted it away and tucked it behind her ear, and then went back to spinning the currants back and forth, twisting the stem between my forefinger and thumb.

There was a pleasing hitch in her breathing as I touched her, and her hands froze momentarily above the bowl, but then she returned to her task as if nothing had happened, except that a tinge of colour not unlike that of the rubied berries appeared in her cheeks.

After a minute more of watching I turned to face the same way as her and stood behind her chair. Reaching over the top of her head, I tried to mimic her actions, envisaging a small shower of berries falling like rain onto the back of her hand. Sadly, I was not up to the task; I can't explain what I did differently from her, it seemed the same, but the berries would not detach themselves from their tracery of stalks, and when I tried to force them, they were crushed under the pressure of my fingers. Instead of a red-currant shower, a smattering of soft pulp and juice fell on her hands and immediately spread, following the lines of least resistance. The redness ran along the valleys created by her veins, into small creases in her skin and between her knuckles.

She scolded me. "Master Liam!" I could not get her to stop saying that first. Every conversation we began would commence with me urging her to drop the "Master" and call me just "Liam". As if, each time, she didn't truly expect me to be her lover again; as if she considered it to be a thing of the past; or thought I would turn into a monster overnight.

But, after all, the object of this particular exercise was to get her to speak first, so call it a success. I took the stained hand in mine and raised it to my lips. I barely touched it before she took it back and shook her head at me, then returned to the red-currants, as if they were the most important thing in life. 

We had a brief parley.

"Anna... you promised."

"Well, I can't help it. The Mistress..."

"What of her?"

"She's in the garden, picking fruit. She says it must be done today."

I smiled at her, and tipped her head up to make her look at me. I waited while she refused to do any such thing. She looked to one side, closed her eyes, and then finally, exasperated, glanced up at my face.

She said, "Oh!" Then she stood and fumbled in the pocket of her apron for something, eventually bringing forth a cloth. She put a hand on the back of my neck to prevent me from pulling away, and, as if I were Kathy and she were cleaning my face in the morning, made to dab at my mouth. 

I caught the hand and the cloth and twisted the arm gently behind her. "What?"

"Juice! On your mouth."

"Better do something about that then."

I bent down and kissed her, gently, hardly touching her at all, and then straightened up again. Her mouth was stained with juice like mine. "Dear me," I said, "Now you've got juice on your mouth too."

She took her free hand from my neck but I imprisoned that one too and told her, "No, not that way."

"Liam, your mother... she'll be back any moment..."

"Better hurry then." I remember I smiled at her.

She stole a nervous glance at the door, and then reached up, offering her mouth to me. I immediately abandoned her hands and pulled her into my arms. The redness of the juice and the trace of berry sweetness were obliterated in moments. I had a feverish need for the taste of her.

"And what made you think of this, my love?"

Darla still holds the child fast in her arms, but I can tell he's dead now. While I was speaking, she must have drained his blood.

Thinking about it, I probably knew the boy. I knew all the children in the village. I hold out my hand and she drops the body to the floor and steps over it to reach me. I stare at the thing that caught my eye. Not the child, but the back of her unnaturally white hand, criss-crossed with rivulets of his blood.


	2. Chapter 2

Echoes (I) Caught Red-Handed 2/3

Author's Name: Soo W 

Disclaimer: These characters belong to WB/Joss/Fox etc etc, but certainly not to me. I'm only writing this for fun and therapy. And because there are NEVER, ever, enough flashbacks.

Pairing: Liam/Anna

Spoilers: Based loosely on events in Becoming and The Prodigal

Short Summary: The newly risen Angel and Darla have run amok in Liam's village. As they try to hide the evidence, Angel is obsessed by memories of a recent event in his human life. 

Rating: [R]

Comments: This is a follow-up to Pen Pictures, but I don't think you need to have read that to read this, so don't worry. It's based on the premise that Liam was having an affair with Anna, the servant who appears in flashbacks in AtS, before he was turned. 

Echoes (I) Caught Red-Handed 2/3 

"Darla?"

Her cold, hard face is sniffing the air for another victim. It is my first night, and I've consumed so many souls I feel quite bloated with them. After the initial triumph of besting my Father, I cared less and less for the rest.

So, when I've finished licking the blood from her hand, I carry on talking, even though I know she is no longer really attending to me; she is elsewhere, already mentally seducing the next kill. 

Anna broke first and pushed me away. She sat down again and reapplied herself to the red-currants, but her hands shook slightly. Footsteps on the path outside announced the arrival of the lady of the house.

I threw the bunch of crushed berries onto the table and waited for my Mother to appear. She came in with a new basket-full and added the shining masses of scarlet to the pile. She hardly glanced at me, but said, "Liam? What are you doing? Don't get under Anna's feet, she's busy."

Without waiting for a response, she crossed the kitchen and entered the small scullery, shutting the door. I moved quickly over to the exit to the garden, opened the door and then shut it without leaving. Then I came back to the table, and moving aside one of the empty chairs, ducked underneath before my Mother returned. 

Anna bent down to see what I was doing and, finding me laughing up at her, was about to tell me to get out, when the scullery door opened again, and she sat up, anxiously reapplying herself to her work.

My mother fussed around the room for a few minutes, checking the pots and watching Anna with the fruit. Underneath the table, I picked up Anna's feet and placed them in my lap. I unlaced her boots and pulled them off quietly. Running my fingers over the wool of her stockings, I stroked her arches from the balls of her feet to her heels. She stifled a giggle, and instinctively tried to draw her feet away, but I wouldn't allow it. Resting them in my lap, I smoothed my hands along her shins, slipping them under her skirts. When I reached her knees, I ran my fingertips over the bone - I remember the kneecap was proud because her legs were bent - and went just high enough to touch the bare skin above the woollen covering. Then I skimmed around to the back of her knees, where there was a small crease in her skin, and allowed my hands to slip down her calves until my fingers measured the slenderness of her ankles.

She waited until my Mother broke the silence (I don't recall what she said, something about work to be done) and gave me a sharp kick in the ribs with her stockinged foot.

The clatter of the door announced my Mother's departure, and as soon as she was gone, Anna bent down and beckoned me to come out. I made no move and she pleaded with me, offering another kiss if I behaved (and not commenting on the contradiction inherent in the bargain.) She stretched out her hand for me, and I caught it and drew one of the stained fingers into my mouth, savouring the taste and the look of surprise mixed with desire that broke over her sweet face. Afterwards, I retained control of her hand and asked, softly "Did you do what I asked?"

She shook her head at me, "Liam, not now..."

I insisted. "Did you?"

I had been trying to persuade her for over a week. She denied me access to her room at night, so the only chance for me to touch her intimately arose during daylight. Whether she believed that this self-made rule would make our encounters less frequent, I could not tell. In spite of this restriction, or perhaps because of it, I found an opportunity to kiss and caress her almost every day. No, in truth, I knew why she refused me her room; if there had been any privacy, I would have enjoyed her at the first, at every opportunity, and she couldn't let me have my way in that, she was adamant. 

When I described what I wanted to do, she was shocked.

"No! Liam, you aren't in earnest? I can't."

"Of course you can. You won't need to do anything else. Just that which I've already asked. I'll do the rest."

"But it's not..."

"What? Virtuous? No... but is this? Or this?"

"Liam, stop, I'm not one of your women down at the tavern. There are some things..."

"There's no danger in it."

Then later, "If your Mother were to find out..."

"With my Father as a husband? There's really no chance of that."

"You know that's not what I mean. If she were to catch us."

And another time, a refusal on the grounds that she wouldn't like it, couldn't possibly be expected to enjoy such a thing. I laughed at her.

"You'll like it. I promise. All women do, as far as I know. I've even seen two women together..."

But she ran away before I could explain, and wouldn't listen to me for the rest of the afternoon. So that day, when I'd succeeded in overcoming her modest opposition, I recall thinking that I'd be damned if a few currant bushes ripening early were going to stand in my way.

So I asked again. "Did you?"

A shrug, followed by the reward of a small smile. "Yes. Yes, I did what you asked."

"I did what you asked." I murmur.

"Did you?" Darla's voice breaks into my reverie. "Did you bury them deep enough?" 

I look at the soil on my hands. The child is gone; the last of my old life concealed in the ground. A pity; I was enjoying the sight of bodies decorating the village, but she said it was necessary. Because angry mobs tend to assemble if leftovers are not well hidden. Because I was a fledgling and not yet strong enough for a fight. Because it would be day soon and we would have to hide nearby. The unexpected complexities of being a blood-drinker.

"Good." She smiles at me. "Then if it's done we can go."


	3. Chapter 3

Echoes (I) Caught Red-Handed 3/3

Author's Name: Soo W 

Disclaimer: These characters belong to WB/Joss/Fox etc etc, but certainly not to me. I'm only writing this for fun and therapy. And because there are NEVER, ever, enough flashbacks.

Pairing: Liam/Anna

Spoilers: Based loosely on events in Becoming and The Prodigal

Short Summary: The newly risen Angel and Darla have run amok in Liam's village. As they try to hide the evidence, Angel is obsessed by memories of a recent event in his human life. 

Rating: [R]

Comments: This is a follow-up to Pen Pictures, but I don't think you need to have read that to read this, so don't worry. It's based on the premise that Liam was having an affair with Anna, the servant who appears in flashbacks in AtS, before he was turned. 

Echoes (I) Caught Red-Handed 3/3 

I haven't finished my story. 

Not that I think Darla is very keen to hear it; every time I mention Anna's name her mouth twists, as if hearing it annoyed her somewhat. But I seem to be under a compulsion to talk, to rid myself of this image that's washed up on the shores of my new life, flotsam and jetsam from the old. 

And I find I like her reaction. The possibility of her jealousy secretly amuses me.

Anna pleaded for an adjournment. "I beg you, Liam, it's too..."

Before she could say "dangerous", I ducked back under the table and pushed her skirts up beyond her knees. Her legs clamped shut, but I could see enough to know she was wearing no undergarments at all, as I'd requested. My impulse was to do it, before she became shy again and disappeared back into a labyrinth of linen. I never knew whether she wore so much because she was cold, or my Mother insisted on it, or as protection against me. Maybe she just enjoyed the long minutes of fumbling as we stood, concealed somewhere in the house or garden, and my hands fought for access to her skin.

But not that day. With the merest touch, her thighs parted for me and I slid my shaking fingers into her warmth.

She made a rapturous noise, neither a groan nor a sigh; nothing so calculated, but a series of short, exhaled breaths that seemed to be beyond her control. I took my hand away and grabbed her dress at the point where it flared below her waist. I pulled, drawing her towards me, so that she perched on the very edge of the chair. Then I pushed the skirts back further, so that her thighs were revealed for my inspection for the first time. They were very pale pink, almost white, covered in tiny colourless hairs. They looked cold, but I had caressed them many times without being allowed to look, and I knew the skin would be wonderfully warm and soft. I kissed the inside of her knee, the first in a trail of kisses leading me to her. 

As the gap between her legs narrowed, I placed a hand on the inside of each knee and spread her further apart. She gasped when my breath fell on her, short and hot, and I felt her hands in my hair as she abandoned the berries at last and used her fingers to guide me, pulling me closer. 

"Oh Liam, please, please..."

I tucked my arms inside her clothing, down the outside of her thighs to cup her rear and moved in to take her most sensitive skin in my mouth.

The door swung open.

I was past caring what happened; I had pleaded, cajoled and planned this for too many days to be denied now. I reasoned that the table would hide me, and she must make the best of it for herself. Then darkness descended and I felt soft fabric closing around my ears. She had flung her skirts forward over my head and curled in a ball as I was, they almost covered me. I froze for a moment, as my Mother came and went among the pots and pans. Then, when Anna did not push me away and no commotion broke out, I continued, running my tongue along the length of her sweet, tender flesh, pressing, circling and flicking. 

What she did above I neither knew nor cared, so engrossed was I in the taste and scent of her. Finally, as I pushed my face completely into her wetness and plunged my tongue inside her as far as I could, I felt her jerk in my arms. Her hands came down to my head again, this time to still me as she pressed her trembling thighs gently together. I could sense her whole body tensing, with no possibility of release. 

Simultaneously, the door clattered again, and she relaxed. I gave each thigh one last kiss, and tugged her skirts over my head. I slipped her boots on again and relaced them, as she sat back in the chair and took deep gulps of air into her lungs.

As I emerged from under the table, she gave the bubbling pots a solemn look and said "God preserve us."

It took me several seconds to realise it was a joke. I remember thinking: I loved her more than I'd ever loved any human being before. I even remember the feeling itself - like a heart-warming but heady panic - and idly wonder if it would resurrect if I saw her again. I reached for her hand but she waved me away, saying there'd been quite enough foolishness for one day, and besides, I should go and do something about my hair.

"You look like a tramp!"

I couldn't bear to leave it like that, so I stayed on my knees and ordered her about. I archly reminded her that she was a servant in the house, after all, nominally at my beck and call. I said, "Do it for me." I knelt in front of her chair and waited, refusing to move away until she smoothed my hair. She untied the ribbon at the back, and, using her fingers as a rudimentary comb, straightened my locks and pushed them away from my face. I managed to slip my hands around her waist, but she refused to be tender again, yanking the ribbon tight with no more feeling than if she'd been tying a bunch of herbs for the pot, and declaring the job finished. Declining to be drawn into any more of my games. And then, at the last moment, when I was about to leave her be, she drew my face up to hers for a kiss.

"Sweet Anna. You're so beautiful."

"If you say so, Sir."

A typically ambivalent reply. I hoped for her, but I feared too; not that we would be discovered, (I hardly cared about that), but that she really saw me as no more than a boy. Someone she humoured out of necessity, but could not rely on, or worse, a bully she had no power to refuse. I was afraid that she couldn't love me.

And I never did find out, one way, or the other. 

"You look like a tramp!" Darla is shaking her head at me and regarding me with a look that might almost be mistaken for affection. I can't tell if I've been talking out loud, or just dreaming about the past. I submit to her cold hands, which shake the grave-dust from my hair.

"Which one was she?"

"Your pardon? I don't understand."

She indicates the mounds of earth. "Your 'sweet Anna'. Which one?"

"She's not here. She left the village yesterday. Or was it the day before?"

She stares at me. "She's alive?"

I nod. "Yes, I suppose she is."

"Then, my love, why all this talk of never? Learn from your Father's death. Where there is life, anything is possible. Anything."

For the first time, it occurs to me that I may have underestimated Darla. She weaves among the freshly dug graves and I follow. Without a backward glance, we leave Liam's village forever. As we pass the milestone, I sense liberation, and the feeling that our adventure is about to begin.


End file.
